


no good way to end this

by handschuhmaus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark Harry, Rule 63, slightly experimental structure
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:47:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23679397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handschuhmaus/pseuds/handschuhmaus
Summary: if this is continued, it is likely to be primarily an elaboration on what has happened up to this point.
Kudos: 1





	no good way to end this

There is a girl inside a cramped cupboard, and no one cares.

There is a girl on a train to the school where her parents went--and there is a boy who has too many brothers for his liking and one whose parents are locked away after the attack in the war she ended, and a girl who is desperate to fit in, and a girl too snobbish by half--and this is where friendships are formed but Harriet doesn't trust that easy.

There is a girl on a stool with a ratty old hat on her head and it yells "GRYFFINDOR", mostly because she sees no point in uselessly making enemies;

\--there is a girl at a bench in the potions lab and the teacher who was once her mother's best friend interrogates her because of having a History with her father.

Nine months on, and there is a girl in a hidden, indeed, a forbidden corridor, having a taste of heroism. She doesn't much like it. It hurts.

* * *

There is a slim journal tucked in a book in a bag in the room of the youngest Weasley, and Ginny is the only girl and the baby of the family and it feels nice having someone else to talk to, another girl. It doesn't much matter for that that Harriet comes over. She's more hero than girl, after all.

Harriet is undisturbed, somehow, when Ginny is bloody-handed. 

She doesn't put a lot of stock in heirs, though. 

And Tamsin, the girl in the book, _borrows_ Ginny, and Harriet wonders what it's like to kill someone, even if they are in a book. 

She likes the heft of the sword, and she could grow to like the accolades, and oh, Ginny, how does that matter?

* * *

Dumbledore looks at Harriet Potter and sees a clay statuette he needs to mold into the right sacrifice for the altar of this war.

Snape looks at Harriet Potter and sees James imposed comically huge on Lily as a veneer over a troubled child. Dumbledore says he's not to interfere. _She_ doesn't think she could manage to make anything of her, anyway.

Sirius Black looks at thirteen year old Harriet Potter, first time in twelve years, and sees James, but Lily. He's never been terribly attuned to dark impulses, having been routinely exposed to them throughout childhood.

Remus Lupin looks at Harriet Potter, and troubles himself to teach her a small measure of defense against a soul-sapping darkness, and is the only one who ventures to think: _it might be too little, too late._

Petunia Evans Dursley looks at Harriet Potter, at the end of the school year, and wonders how it is that, in their world, they aren't bothered about the potential to hurt people.

* * *

Harriet Potter, fourteen years old, is a gracious and protesting secondary champion of Hogwarts. She steals a dragon egg and rescues Ginny, because it's expected; it's a measure of approval, and Ginny knows how it feels to have blood on your hands.

She grabs the cup and watches with a singularly unalarmed expression the murder of the other champion. 

Tamsin Riddle, Lord Voldemort, is back, and this does not inspire in the narrow chest all the aspirations to heroism Dumbledore had hoped for. 

Harriet Potter looks at the warped creature who marked her for dead and now shares her blood, and nods at the motto offered. She readily agrees: "there are no good people. There is only power."

* * *

There is a house at 4 Privet Drive. One day in early June, 1994, the gas main within explodes. Not long after, the building burns to the ground. 

There is a house at 11 Grimmauld Place. Adults, mostly, are called here to convene and make plans for the war against Voldemort. 

There is no war. Harriet Potter walks into the Ministry of Magic--of _course_ Harriet Potter, the Girl-Who-Lived, is allowed to walk into the Ministry. After that, Tamsin Riddle's coup--Voldemort's coup--is quick and as easy.

There is a building--call it a house (it was meant to be one)--in the north of England, where a Potions Mistress agrees to protect her goddaughter, and wonders when, exactly, mistreated children will matter.

* * *

Ginny Weasley knows Tamsin Riddle better than her own mother, even in what Harriet says is a beautifully magically corrupted state.

The new Minister of Magic strips Dumbledore of every title except one, and that one she makes nigh on meaningless. Demands are issued, and fly fast between the Muggle government and the Dark Lord. Next year's class at Hogwarts will be lucky: the Minister herself will be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts...

**Author's Note:**

> if this is continued, it is likely to be primarily an elaboration on what has happened up to this point.


End file.
